


on the opposite side

by Windmire



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, too many babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:17:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4840358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windmire/pseuds/Windmire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Whatever strange thing is subtly messing with their lives doesn't have the decency to be a one-time thing. Noire's born with the wrong eye color, Severa's hair starts growing in </i>blonde<i>, to Cordelia's bemusement, and Gerome isn't born <i>at all</i>, even though he's supposed to be older than some of the ones already running (crawling?) around.<i></i></i><br/> <br/><br/>Or: Who said the future was <i>done</i> changing?<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	on the opposite side

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I. I don't know. Don't think about this too hard. Don't take it too seriously.
> 
> I started this in February and kind of just wanted to finish it already.
> 
> And don't you just love it when, hours after uploading a fic, you realize you left out an entire line, wow, yeah, me too

By the time they find out they're expecting Cynthia, Gaius is _re_ adjusting to living at home.

He didn't really _mean_ to stay away for so long in the first place, honest, but it turns out thieving's just a little hard to pull off from his wife's pegasi pasture.

And Sumia doesn't exactly _approve_ of his "life of crime," anyway, but she never actually _tells_ him to stop doing it, so what's the harm in some gold disappearing from a city nobleman's pockets every once in a while? A missing cake or two? He's not really hurting anyone, is he?

Except himself, maybe. He gets the stuffing beat out of him by some guys who thought he was muscling into _their_ territory. (And maybe he was. Juuuuust a little. But he's not going to _admit_ it.)

And he finds himself sent straight back home, Sully looming over him with a smile that's, frankly, nowhere near friendly or comforting and, really, he'd rather go back and feed pegasi than deal with both her and ol' Fred.

Until Sumia sees him when he gets back home, having already heard about what happened, and how could he get himself hurt like that? He could have been _killed_. And he takes it back, he takes it all back. He'd rather Sully try to run him over with that horse of hers than see Sumia upset, so worried.

Gaius tries to comfort her-- he likes to think he's not exactly a bad husband, after all-- and it does seem to do the trick. Sort of. Her breathing slows, she shakes her head.

And slaps him. With her fist. (He's beginning to suspect she _forgets_ these things on purpose.)

\------------

And then she tells him they're expecting Cynthia.

... _Sweet_.

\------------

Except they seem to be part of some sort of baby epidemic that they really should have expected, all considered. It's not like all those kids that just dropped out of the sky a while back were really that far apart in age. So it's weird, and everyone's talking way too much about babies and expecting babies, and disgustingly happy couples, but.

What hasn't been weird, or disgusting, lately?

It starts with Chrom and Olivia when, next thing they know, little princess Lucina has little prince Inigo as a little brother. And everything's going according to plan, everything's just as they already knew it would be.

Then a few months later, it's Cordelia having that kid of hers, naming her Severa. Just as expected.

Then Panne has twins.

\------------

"Um, I don't know..." Sumia tells him that night, seated at their kitchen table. "Maybe Lucina and the others _really_ changed things. Just... small things. It could be exciting."

He huffs, head propped up on his hand. "I dunno about _exciting_ , honey. It's just Panne having two Yarnes."

She snorts out a laugh, covering her face with her hands. "It's not two Yarnes, it's just twins and..."

She trails off, lowers her hands again, and, eyes bright, back straight, looks straight into his eyes. "Gaius. What if _we_ have two Cynthias? Or a boy and a girl? Or even more and..."

He grins at her, carefree, or tries to, really tries to, but he can't quite ignore the shiver down his spine at her words.

More than one kid...

Maybe he shouldn't have promised the gods his first-born son in exchange for donuts.

\------------

Rumor has it Yarne just about fainted when he found out about the two hims, but you didn't hear that from Gaius.

It's. Odd. Not as planned. Yarne never mentioned any siblings, continues to _insist_ he had and has none and, worst of all, in the little rabbit boy's opinion, it's twin boys, and he doesn't know _which one is him_.

Panne, because she's a cool lady, ignores Yarne the First freaking out, shrugs, and names one Yarne and the other Chambray.

It's just names anyway.

(And brings up interesting questions. Do two Yarnes make an actually brave taguel?)

\------------

Whatever strange thing is subtly messing with their lives doesn't have the decency to be a one-time thing. Noire's born with the wrong eye color, Severa's hair starts growing in _blonde_ , to Cordelia's bemusement, and Gerome isn't born _at all_ , even though he's supposed to be older than some of the ones already running (crawling?) around.

Then little prince Owain is born with his brand somewhere else entirely and who-oa. How scary Lissa is when she's freaked out is something he never needed to know.

\------------

"...And Olivia thinks Lucina and Inigo's personalities got switched!" Sumia finishes absentmindedly, while brushing out her favorite pegasus' mane.

He's stuck _cleaning after_ some of the particularly ill-tempered ones, the ones that definitely do not like him (not sweet at all), so he only grunts in response, and hopes it comes across as at least somewhat questioning.

"I know he never acted that way, but she says he was supposed to have been so shy when he was little," she says, laughing. "But now _Lucina's_ the shy one and, well, he's too small to tell, but Olivia's sooo sure she's acting the way he should be."

Gaius stops, barely dodges a kick from ol' Buttercup there, and contemplates an existence where his future daughter isn't a complete and utter _loon_.

Yeah, _no_.

\------------

Sumia laughs at him when he brings it up to her that night, says something about loving their daughter no matter what.

Traitor.

\------------

They send word to Lucina as soon as it's obvious something's fishy. If anyone can figure out what's up it's her and the kid's got a good head on her shoulders anyway, even if she did run off with the weird kid with the mask who, apparently, refuses to exist in their time (and if Gaius is lucky, Cherche will _never_ hear him talk about her son that way).

Predictably, it's a bust. She's just as stumped as the rest of them when she arrives back in Ylisse, though she does that stoic thing of hers that he's not entirely convinced is entirely real.

Dead end there.

\------------

It is, of all people, Virion who ends up being the voice of reason, when they all meet a week later-- the entire army, and isn't that just horrifying, having so many people in one room talking about their weird, messed up babies.

He and Padre arrive last, because apparently Rosanne's far or something? (That is where those two have been living together, isn't it?)

"So the children are different?" He shrugs, spreads his hands. "I suppose you all thought the future was supposed to have _finished_ changing when we dealt with Grima? Even with _them_ ," and he gestures at the little cluster of future kids to his right (most of them looking remarkably bored), "still among us?"

Sumia perks up, sits a little straighter. "Oh! That's what I told Gaius! The future still has to be changing! And I, um, I know it sounds a little frightening, but I think it's exciting... An exciting future!"

Virion, the traitor, agrees with her.

Gaius just groans, hides his face in his hands.

\------------

He doesn't bother to go to the next frantic, messed up baby meeting.

Afterwards, he hears from Chrom himself that they all just agreed to deal with it anyway.

 _What_ ever.

\------------

Miriel names her kid Loran. Something about testing a hypothesis.

He really doesn't want to know.

\------------

And, two months after the fiasco surrounding Brady's birth (he's not talking about it, he's not talking about it, he's _not talking about it_ ), Gaius and Sumia have a tiny girl with ginger fuzz on her weird newborn head.

So far so good.

\------------

"It's the color of _carrots_ ," he grouses, five months after Cynthia's born.

She's supposed to have his hair color, isn't she? The problem is his hair is so not the color of carrots. It's _ginger_ , like... like... Like something that isn't carrots!

But that's not even what's really important right now anyway. What's important is they've been hit with the weird kid-changing bug, too, he just knows it, and they're doomed to have some weird, boring stiff as their daughter and they'll never get to hear her over the top stories and--

"Your hair _is_ the color of carrots," Sumia says after a moment, far too pleasant, and presses a kiss to his forehead.

She's still a traitor.

He should get her flowers.

And honeycakes.

\------------

Once Cynthia's hair grows long enough, he ties it into pigtails anyway.

Just in case.


End file.
